There are a number of different types of government help with childcare fees, the main ones being the tax-free childcare system, and the government funded childcare hours. Details about both types of help and also details about universal credit and tax credit for childcare can be found at the childcarechoices.gov.uk website.

Tax free childcare is a government initiative intended to help eligible working parents with the cost of childcare.  It is aimed at families with children aged 0-11 (or up to 17 if their child has a disability) and can save families up to £2,000 per child per year (or £4,000 for a child with a disability).  

It’s possible to access tax free childcare alongside the funded hours, and it’s available to all working families, including parents who are self-employed.  To be eligible parents must need to earn at least the equivalent of the national minimum wage for 16 hours per week, but less than £100,000 per year.  For every £8 parent put into their tax-free childcare account, the government will add £2.  

Parents can then use the money in their tax-free childcare accounts to pay childcare providers, Mulberry Bush is registered with the tax-free childcare scheme. 

All three and four-year-old children are entitled to claim 15 funded hours per week for 38 weeks of the year, amounting to 570 hours per year. In addition, children of working families aged nine months upwards are entitled to 30 funded hours per week for 38 weeks of the year. This means that a combined total of 1140 hours per year are available for children of working families aged 9 months upwards.

You can access tax free childcare from the end of maternity/paternity leave (for the details of this please see the graphic below).

Your child becomes entitled to receive funded hours from the start of the term following when they become nine months old and their third birthday (as relevant). The terms start in September (Autumn), January (Spring) and April (Summer).

By way of example, this means if your child becomes nine months old in November, they will become entitled to working families funding from the start of the Spring term in January. If your child turns three in May, they will become entitled to three and four-year-old funding from the start of the Autumn term in September.

As our nurseries are open for 51 weeks a year, only closing for Christmas week, we ‘stretch’ the funded hours entitlement throughout the whole year.  This means that we offer the funding over 48 weeks of the year (not 38), ensuring fewer weeks of full fees for families.  The remaining four weeks of the year where funding isn’t available are Christmas week when the nurseries are closed, the first week of January when fees are already reduced, and the last two weeks of August when children leave us to go to school. 

During funded weeks at Mulberry Bush, if children are entitled to 15 funded hours per week, they will access 12 funded hours, 6 per day, based on a minimum attendance of two days per week.  If children are entitled to 30 funded hours per week, they will access 24 hours funded hours, 8 per day based on a minimum attendance of three days per week. 

The remaining hours are used to ‘stretch’ the funding for additional weeks where there wouldn’t usually be any funding.  

Whether or not the stretched funding is available for the entire year at nursery will depend on when each child becomes entitled to the funding (see above). It will only be possible to stretch over the whole 48 weeks of an academic year (i.e. from September until the following mid-August) if a child has become entitled to funding from the Autumn term. If a child becomes entitled to the funding from January, then the funding will run until the end of July, and if they become entitled to the funding from April then it will run until the middle of July.

Exact details as when an individual child’s funding will be able to be stretched until will be stated in the Parent Agreements which nursery produces and which are signed by parents.

Once children who are already attending nursery become eligible for funded hours, we will automatically convert some of their days of attendance to include the funded hours.   Each Mulberry Bush funded day consists of 6 or 8 funded hours (dependant on 15 hrs or 30 hrs) plus a charge for additional hours per day (3.5 hrs when entitled to 15 hours per week and 1.5 hrs when entitled to 30 hrs per week).  

We do not charge any extra for meals, drink or snacks, or for any consumable items including nappies, wipes, Calpol, Nurofen, baby milk, suncream etc.  We also do not make an additional charge for access to all additional services which aren’t intended to be covered by the basic funding provided by the government, and which relate to our enhanced nursery provision such as French sessions, our many visitors (yoga, animal visits, football skills, mindfulness, theatre shows etc.), baking activities, parties, our Academy programme, our sensory rooms etc. We do not charge for these additional items as we want our childcare to be truly inclusive, and would never want a child to have a lesser experience at nursery than their peers.

It is possible to attend nursery for just the funded hours, completely free of charge.  These places are available for 38 weeks of the year and the government funded hours would not be stretched.  

They are available an academic year at a time, on our quieter days which will be confirmed term by term depending on availability.  For 30 hour places, they are accessed on three ten-hour days and for 15 hour places they are available on two shorter days (7.30am until 3pm).  

For the funding which is only available for working families, eligible parents will need to apply for an eligibility code from childcarechoices.gov.uk.  This code will need to be provided to nursery and eligibility will need to be reconfirmed online every three months. Without an eligibility code working families will not be able to access the funded hours.  Nursery is not able to obtain codes on parents’ behalf.   

Codes are not needed for the universal entitlement for three and four-year-old children which is universally available, nor for the two-year-old funding for children whose families receiving financial support, which needs to be applied for with the Local Authority.  

All parents accessing funded hours at Mulberry Bush will be required to sign a Parent Agreement produced by nursery.  This will be needed annually in most cases, but more often if a child is accessing funded hours only.